


pyrrhic

by mcswoonfor_mcdoon



Series: PAFM2020 [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Dark Nico, M/M, PAFM2020, blood mention, everyone is dead!, have fun with that, mental illness kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25832800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcswoonfor_mcdoon/pseuds/mcswoonfor_mcdoon
Summary: pyr·rhic/ˈpirik/adjective(of a victory) won at too great a cost to have been worthwhile for the victor.
Relationships: Nico Di Angelo/Percy Jackson (implied), onesided - Relationship
Series: PAFM2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1866043
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30
Collections: Percico Angst and Fluff Month 2020





	pyrrhic

**Author's Note:**

> revenge is a dish best served cold
> 
> according to all the descriptions of fire, nico did not get the memo

He knows, loosely, what it’s supposed to feel like. He knows that winning is supposed to make him happy again, make him feel good again. 

Make him better. 

So why is his chest still hollow? Is this how it is? Is  _ this _ , the ache he’s been carrying around for  _ years,  _ his prize? Had he had it the whole time? Was he really  _ happy  _ this whole time? 

No. No, no, no, something is wrong. Very wrong. 

Smoke swirls towards the clouds, the scent of burning, salt, and  _ decay  _ thick in the air. He’s choking—  _ on what?  _ he thinks belatedly, because there is nothing around him— and his eyes are clouded with something he doesn’t understand. 

The dust settles low around him. He’s choking, he  _ can’t breathe,  _ but he’s been like this his whole life, right? Suffocated from the inside out, buried ten feet underground, oxygen forced out of his lungs and crumbling dirt and dust and grit forcing its way down his throat. 

_ Too young, too slow, too late.  _

The world around him smells of burnt sage and iron. The dirt beneath his feet soaks up pools of red excitedly. He can feel the bones under him, deep and far away, feel the way the earth trembles and shakes at the thought of new, new,  _ new,  _ new and fresh bodies to consume. The ground will swallow them, too, and they will choke, like he did. Does. Is. 

His hands are shaking, he realizes lazily, his sword drooping past his fingertips, lower and lower. His mouth tastes of blood and ash, and his insides sit heavy in his body. 

Wrong. This is all  _ wrong,  _ but  _ why?  _ He won. He won! 

Shouldn’t he feel light? Shouldn’t he feel elated? Or is it that he’s forgotten how to feel? 

He can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe, breathe,  _ breathe.  _

He vomits stomach acid next to a girl with pretty curls, and his heart clenches painfully. 

Isn’t this what he wanted? 

He walks through his chaos, staring wide eyed at the wreckage he brought. Cabins collapsed in on themselves, fissures and craters carved deep in crumbling earth, fires soaring high and mighty into the air, spreading and rotting and burning ( _ it’s  _ **_hot_ ** _ and his throat burns and he spits blood into the Canoe Lake and watches as it spreads through the water)  _ all that it touches, the scent of sulfur and decay has dripped into every crevice of the camp that he could never call home. The ground is sticky with both congealed and liquid blood— it’s all the same, same,  _ same nothing changed it went wrong, something went wrong _ — and there are more bodies than he’d wished to ever see in his life. 

He did this for  _ them,  _ for his family that he  _ lost,  _ to make it up to them, to feel the sweet satisfaction of watching what could’ve been  _ burn.  _

But there’s no satisfaction. 

Only something deep and sharp and painful, that sticks to his insides and makes his empty stomach churn again and makes him ache for something that he can’t remember. 

_ What is he feeling, if it isn’t joy?  _

**_Can he even remember what joy feels like?_ **

He throws up again when he finds  _ his _ body. 

He’s on his knees in an instant, shaky and uncoordinated, his vision blurring dangerously and his chest throbbing with  _ something  _ as he places his hands over the other boy's heart. He leans closer to his mouth, puts his ear there, waiting. 

Nothing. 

He pulls away. His hands come up slippery with red, and  _ no,  _ this isn’t  _ right,  _ something went wrong, no no no, oh gods. 

He scrambles back, dirt sticking to his fingers, grabbing at him, trying to pull him under so he can be drowned again; choked by his own element, dragged deeper by yellowed bones and loose flesh. He forces himself up, turns sharply, and walks away. 

Nico thinks he understands what that empty feeling in his chest is, now; the heaviness in his stomach that causes his insides to twist and his throat to go raw. 

**_Regret._ **

Something warm slides down his cheeks as he tries to forget white-glazed sea green eyes. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!


End file.
